North Korea Practicing Bombing with WWII Era AN-2 Biplanes

Our Bureau

09:32 AM, August 24, 2019

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North Korea reportedly intricately cut grass in shapes similar to South Korean military hardware including F-15K jets just outside Sondok Military Airport, and has been practicing with its WWII-era Antonov An-2 biplane.

The Soviet-origin obsolete aircraft have been put to use by Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) to simulate bombing of Seoul's hardware owing to its new-found military application of dodging air defenses, other than dropping paratroopers. The single-engine aircraft was originally designed for use in forestry and agriculture, a report published by Seoul-based Chosun Ilbo newspaper on Thursday, has claimed.

"The An-2 is capable of carrying air-to-surface rockets or bombs to carry out bombing missions. It'd be very threatening if it avoids radar detection and drop bombs on our air bases while sending some dozen parachute commandos down to the ground," an unnamed South Korean intelligence officer said.

In 2017, when tensions spewed between Pyongyang and Seoul, Korean People’s Army’s An-2 planes were flown during North Korea’s flexing of military muscles near the DMZ. The prop-driven biplane could maintain lift flying at a speed of 25mph.

The “slow” plane has a low radar cross-section. Therefore, modern pulse-doppler radars filters out An-2s, believing them to be debris or signal noise. The lethality of these planes lies in difficulty in spotting them, and not the problem in targeting them with anti-air weaponry, the report said.